step by step
by marcato
Summary: cftbf shipping week 2013 - oneshot collection. .i. the stairway to heaven began with a single step, and theirs was like a fairytale. ((mostly thinly-veiled crack!fic))


**Tbh I think I should die for this but only because of excessive use of the word "ribbit". Oh, and crack. Always crack.**

**Forgive me for I have sinned. It's not even that Jortato-ey.**

* * *

"What the actual-"

"Oh God why."

"I don't know," said Joan, twirling around, "I kinda like the look. Can I keep it?"

"Joan," said Sunny, sighing, "if it has somehow managed to pass you by, we are now Disney princesses."

"You are. I'm not." Joan pointed out, gesturing to Sunny's ball gown, then her own costume. "I think I'm supposed to be Rule 63!Kuzco or something. Either way, this is _awesome_. Who are you supposed to be, anyway?"

Iris shrugged, glancing at her own attire. "I genuinely have no idea? Like what is this even supposed to be."

Sunny shrugged. "You look like a badly done RL personification of Belle. Like, from Beauty and the Beast."

Iris smirked. "Oh well, it could be worse. At least I'm not Cinderella."

"Yeah, but Sunny is Cinderella." Joan said, giggling. "Probably. Poofy dress and gloves and hair. Also, where's everyone else? And do we have love interests?" She paused. "And is Jortato still legit?"

"Dear, Jortato is always legit. Always." Sunny twirled in her dress, then sighed. "Always." She sniffed dramatically.

* * *

"HOW DID WE EVEN GET HERE?"

"Snow, calm down." Apple tried to pap his sister, but she dodged and continued pacing and ranting.

"No, I will not calm down. I am dressed as Snow White, and _you_, are lacking a shirt? Somehow? I don't even?"

Apple sighed. "Joan is going to die. I can't believe this is actually a thing?"

Tish smirked. "The Disney Aladdin lacks a shirt and only wears a vest thing, but I don't know. Maybe it's Joan's mental personification of you or something."

"...I thought you didn't ship Appgee? And where are we, anyway?"

Snow looked around, then replied, "we might be in your palace?" She paused, then added, "well, Aladdin's palace. The architecture is kinda palace-y. But not in a castle way. So that rules me out. And Tish..." she turned to said girl. "Who are you supposed to be?"

"I think I'm Lilo. Like, from Lilo and Stitch? She's not even a Disney Princess or anything, idk why I'm her. No offence."

Apple waved his hand. "None taken. I don't mind not being one, at least I'm not in a dress yet."

"Yet."

"Shhhh. We don't want her to hear."

* * *

"You would think, that after all this time, they would stop randomly dumping us in the same location." Tate groaned, sitting on the floor. "And what the crap do I do with all this _hair_?"

Jordan shrugged-or would have, had he not been a frog-and hopped towards her. "At least you're not a frog." He croaked. "If this is Joan's idea of a joke, I'm going to fucking _murder_ her. Slowly. With knives."

"I'll be the one holding her down." Tate said, fiddling with her-now 20 meter long-hair. "No, but seriously. What do I do with all of this? Can I cut it off?"

"Ribbit."

"God damn it, Jordan."

Jordan ribbit-ed again, then said, "how long do you think we're going to stay like this?"

"Until Joan fixes the remote. Somehow. Again. Or we could find some plot hole dust or something." Tate paused, then rose. "There's probably a fairy godmother somewhere around here to fix our shit, so I guess we could go there as a last resort?"

"RAPUNZEL RAPUNZEL LET DOWN YOUR HAIR!"

Tate blinked. "What's that?"

"Ribbit?"

The girl sighed, then picked Jordan up and put him on her shoulder. "I still can't believe Joan made you a frog. She's probably rolling on the ground in laughter right now." She crossed the room and looked out the window. "WHO THE CRAP ARE YOU AND WHAT DO YOU WANT?"

"I'M A CHARMING THIEF WHO'S COME TO STEAL YOUR HEART!"

Tate promptly dropped a saucepan on his head.

"Did you really just-"

"Yes."

"Why?"

"Because I can. Quick, let's go down and dig through his pockets."

"Ribbit."

* * *

"Found it!" Tish said triumphantly, raising the carpet above her head. Then she sneezed. "Ew, dusty. App you need to clean your palace more."

"It's not my palace, it's Aladdin's palace." Apple argued.

Tish rolled her eyes. "But right now, you are Aladdin and that makes this your palace. So CLEAN IT UP."

"Guys, back to the point." Snow snatched the carpet out of Tish's hands. "We need to find the others, and _get out of this AU._ Why do we always get trapped in these things, anyway?"

"Because we're a group of insane writers?"

Snow nodded. "Fair enough. Everyone on the carpet."

The carpet then proceeded to buck all of them off. One by one.

"God damn it, carpet. Will you take us to find our friends? Please?" Snow asked.

"It sounds like an episode of Dora the Explorer," Tish muttered. "Hey Map, which way do we go?"

Apple sighed, "except the Map doesn't talk and is instead a magic carpet? Yeah. Come on, carpet-carpet? Carpie?-we really need to get to our friends because we want to go home so that we can murder the person who put us in here in the first place."

The carpet gave them the middle finger. Which is to say that it stuck a corner in their direction.

* * *

"Wait, so if we're all Disney Princesses, do we have magical singing voices?" Joan asked as they wandered through the town, several people calling greetings to Iris, who seemed to bask in their attention.

"I don't know, let's check. Sunny, sing."

"What? Why me?"

"Because reasons. Now stfu and sing."

As it happened, most Disney Princesses did indeed have magical voices. These magical voices, however, caused suitors to mob them incessantly.

"PRINCESS! MARRY ME!"

"NO, MARRY ME!"

"I HAVE A DOWRY!"

"A CASTLE FIT FOR A KING!"

"SHE'S A _PRINCESS_, IDIOT! IT SHOULD BE A KINGDOM FIT FOR A PRINCESS!"

"BUT WOULDN'T A CASTLE FOR A KING BE BETTER?"

"You're all idiots. Now move out of the way, we have places to go, people to see." Iris said, shoving some of the lovesick boys out of the way.

"Where are we going, anyway?" Sunny asked as they pushed past the crowd of people. "We don't know where the rest are."

Joan rolled her eyes. "Sunny, I wrote this AU. I know where everyone is. Summon a few birds, I'll send messages to them. Or something."

"How does that even work? Like do I just whistle or say abracadabra or-"

"Stfu and summon birds, Sunny."

Sunny whistled, and a large flock of pigeons swooped down from a church spire. "Pigeons? Really? Not even pretty woodland birds or anything?"

"Yes, really. Okay hi pigeons, I need one of you to go to Prince Aladdin of Agrabah, and tell him that we need him to come and get us from here. The three of us. As in, Kuzco, Belle and Cinderella. He'll understand. Probably. Okay now I need another one of you to send a message to Rapunzel in her tower, hopefully she's still there. Tell her we're coming to pick her up sooner or later. Also laugh at the frog for being a frog. Because frog." Joan took a breath, then added, "oh yeah, I want a bar of chocolate too."

Three of the pigeons flew away to complete their tasks while the rest continued to stare at her. "What? You want things to do too? Go mug a tourist or something, I don't know."

The flock squawked, then returned to their perch on the church spire.

"Guys," said Iris, sitting on a bench, "I think we're going to regret that instruction later."

* * *

"So, we've stripped him of his clothes, stolen his horse, kidnapped his supplies and basically robbed him blind. What do we do now?"

Jordan blinked. "Ribbit."

Tate sighed. "I swear you're only doing that to annoy me."

"I can't really help it, considering that I'm a frog you should cut me some slack."

"Well," said Tate, stuffing the clothes into a handy knapsack (it happened to be bottomless and belonged to the thief, which probably explained the magic), "at least we can keep the clothes for when you change back. Whenever that is." She squinted into the distance. "Is that a plane?"

"Tate, we're in a forest. I'm pretty sure it's a bird. And why is it dive-bombing towards us?"

The pigeon proceeded to crash-land several meters from them.

"...that pigeon sucks at flying."

Tate cautiously approached the pigeon, then poked it with a handy stick. "Is it dead?" The pigeon got back onto its feet, shaking itself off and squawked at Tate. "I don't know what it's saying."

Jordan sighed, "it says it's from Empress Kuzco, Princesses Belle and Cinderella. What the fuck does that mean?"

"Um, I think Sunny got cast as Cinderella once. As a joke. So I guess it's the Shipping Trio? What else is it saying? Squawking? Cawing? I don't know."

"They're coming to pick us up soon and to sit tight and-" Jordan glared at the pigeon. "That's offensive, take it back."

"Squawk."

"No, your mother is bitch."

The pigeon proceeded to try and swallow Jordan whole.

"...God damn it."

"Ribbit," said Jordan the frog, his voice muffled by the bird's mouth. "Can you get me out of here or-"

Tate sighed, grabbing the pigeon (it tried to fly away but somehow unbalanced and fell over due to the frog in its mouth) and separating the two. "Ew, Pigeon saliva."

* * *

"Apple. Why are you not wearing a shirt. I... what?" Iris stared at Apple, then sighed. "Do you think the carpet can support all of us?"

"Hopefully. Anyway, if it can't, I have this." Apple waved an oil lamp in the air. Joan blinked.

"Is that the genie lamp? Have you rubbed it? Do we all get three wishes?"

Apple shrugged. "Yes, no, probably. I don't know."

It was at this point that the flock of previously mentioned pigeons saw the newly arrived trio.

(Did you seriously think that I was going to leave it as a one-off thing? Shame on you, reader. Dishonor on your cow.)

And so the pigeons swarmed.

"What the fuck, guys?" Iris yelled over the squawking.

"Mug a tourist! I said to mug a tourist! I didn't-" Joan paused. "Wait, they're kind of tourists. God damn it. Sunny, call off the bloody pigeons!"

Sunny whistled. The squawking stopped. "Well that was ridiculously easy."

A single pigeon hopped off Tish, waddling towards Sunny and setting the genie lamp at her feet. Giving her a look, as if expecting her to take it, the commander pigeon squawked, and the flock rose and flew in formation towards the church.

"Well that was unexpected."

Snow sighed, now covered in peck marks. "So can we go yet, or do we have to get mobbed by an elephant?"

It took them at least an hour to reach the tower. It was easy to spot on the horizon, after all, it was kind of on fire.

Wait, what?

"WHY IS THE TOWER ON FIRE OH GOD."

"DOWN DOWN DOWN GO GO GO. NO WAIT I MEANT #GOGOGO."

"THIS IS NOT THE TIME TO BE MAKING BAD META REFERENCES, SUNNY!"

"THERE IS ALWAYS TIME FOR BAD META REFERENCES! ALWAYS!"

The carpet dived downwards, the six clinging onto it for dear life. "SOMEONE RUB THE BLOODY LAMP AND PUT THE FIRE OUT!"

Sunny, holding onto the lamp by her fingertips-they were diving, after all-managed to rub it, and with a poof of smoke the genie appeared.

"I'm the genie of the lamp and- hey wait, you're not Aladdin-"

"NO TIME!" Snow yelled, "I WISH THAT TOWER WAS PUT OUT!"

"YOU SOUND LIKE TIMMY TURNER-"

"SHUT UP JOAN!"

Genie snapped his fingers, a large tub of water appearing over the tower and dousing the flames. The carpet touched down, then curled up into a roll. Apple papped it. "Sorry for your trauma, carpet."

Tate walked towards them, Jordan perched on her shoulder. "Hi guys. Thanks for putting out the fire."

"...Tate, if you're Rapunzel, isn't your hair supposed to be long? And not short?"

"...It's a long story, but basically the annoying thief guy woke up again and somehow managed to find stairs up the tower. And then he knocked over a candle or something and then my hair caught fire and then everything caught fire. And then you guys got here. Also, fried pigeon." She waved a drumstick for emphasis.

Meanwhile, Joan and Sunny were sniggering. "Jordan, you're a frog."

"Shut up."

"Say ribbit."

"No."

"Please?"

"...ribbit."

Sunny fell over laughing. (It took several minutes to get her up again later as they boarded the carpet.)

* * *

The Fairy Godmother blinked.

"So what you're saying is, you want me to get you back home, return these... characters to their original state and change you back from a frog into a human." She gestured to Jordan. "I can do all of that, except the last one. Magic spells are really potent, especially that one. It's one of the oldest ones. Only cured by a true love's kiss too."

They all turned to Jordan.

"No incest, nope." Tish said, her, Sunny, Iris, Snow and Apple shaking their heads and backing away.

"I'm his moirail. No. Just. Like. What. No." Joan said, smirking. "Anyway, we all know that Tate is the one who's his twu luv anyway."

"But. But guys. Guys why. Guys no. The universe forbids it." Tate said, pleading.

"Guys, if she's not willing we shouldn't do it, okay." Jordan croaked. "Ribbit."

Joan sniggered. "Still can't believe that's a thing. Also, is that an indirect confession that you won't be opposed to snogging Tate?"

"...shut up, Joan. I'm still going to murder you for turning me into a frog."

"Come on, Jordan," Iris said, bringing him up to eye level. "You know you want to. Also Tate, none of us are going to do it, and unless you would like to quest for a cure-in a magical land, I might add-you should kiss him. Really."

Tate sighed. "Fine, okay?"

And of course there was magic and sparkles and squealing. Oh, and fireworks. Can't forget the fireworks.

* * *

"And so that kids, is how I met your mother." Jordan finished.

"I can't believe you just referenced HIMYM. In the worst way possible. Also, you didn't even meet her that way. That's not how things work." Cherry said, sitting on the floor, her siblings next to her nodding.

Tate sighed. "Fine, that wasn't the official thing, but it was our first kiss, so it counts. Kinda."

Ichigo groaned. "But I want a proper story."

"Next time, okay kids? Bedtime. Go. Or Aunt Joan will eat you in your sleep."

* * *

**Here lies Joan. RIP. Don't eat us in our sleep.**


End file.
